* His ignorance of economic and national security issues is breathtaking. ... n transcripts of two recent interviews he reminds me of students who try to answer questions in class when they have not done the reading. He is faking it on policy, and not that well.

* He shows no interest and no effort in learning anything about the issues and decisions he might face as President. As a result he babbles in interviews, avoids Q&A sessions with voters, ... He should be improving over time and he’s not. Even if he intends to reject the advice of experts and be an outside-the-box thinker, he should at a minimum understand what he is rejecting and where that will lead him.

* Shouting STRENGTH is not a policy. ... He is unprincipled: he appears to view the world through dual lenses of transactions and of people he likes and dislikes. He treats other nations as competing firms and acts as if America’s only overseas interest is in maximizing revenue streams paid by foreign governments.

* He promises to make America great again, but great alone is insufficient. America must also be good. ... I know what the other nominees think a good America looks like. All I know about Mr. Trump’s America is that it will have a huge wall and new trade deals.

* He seems to think of the federal government as a big firm; it’s not.

Priebus is not the only one who has been duped, of course. Trump’s fleet of supporters and enablers — New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-Ala.), Jim DeMint, Newt Gingrich, etc. — are now forever linked with Trump and his bizarre, unschooled pronouncements. Last night provided new cringe-worthy moments.

His temperamental and intellectual deficits, obvious to millions of Republicans, will drive voters to Hillary Clinton, if a third candidate is not on the ballot. It’s why poll numbers showing him losing badly to Clinton (sorry, Donald, you are not winning) are likely to worsen as the general electorate sees Trump struggle to answer even the most basic questions.

Trump supporters, no one should let you off of that bandwagon now. You should be handcuffed to that Titanic you volunteered to crew. Donald Trump didn’t suddenly change in the past few days, weeks or months. He’s the same guy he always was, the same guy that most of us in the conservative movement and GOP have been staunchly opposing for the past year. He didn’t abruptly become reckless, obnoxious, ill-informed, erratic, hot-tempered, pathologically dishonest, narcissistic, crude and catastrophically unqualified for the presidency overnight. He’s always been that guy, and you denied it and ignored it and hand-waved it away and made excuses every step of the way because you were convinced that you were so much smarter than the rest of us.

... There is no long game. He’s winging it. There is no grand strategy. There is no master plan. Trump doesn’t look ahead to the next sentence, much less the next step in getting elected.

Technically we’re supposed to welcome previous Trump fans-turned-foes with open arms. But barring some miraculous comeback by Ted Cruz, the Trump campaign will have cost the Republican Party the presidency after eight years of Obama, and perhaps the Senate and even the House – and Scalia’s replacement on the Court as well. Years of effort spent attempting to dispel the accusations of inherent Republican misogyny, xenophobia, hypocrisy, ignorance and blind rage have been undone by Trump’s campaign. And every Trump advocate in front of a camera had a hand in this. We’re not just gonna hug it out.